Technology Update 2.0

In our second week of exploring the characteristics and common tools of social networking and social media, let’s turn our attention to RELATIONSHIP. We are also introducing two new sites/services this week. Feel free to explore one or both.  They are: Delicious and Twitter.

First, a bit about RELATIONSHIP in social media/software.

It seems obvious that software, web sites and tools that are striving to be social would involve relationships, doesn’t it? The interesting thing to observe is how the different sites/networks do this. In the context of social software, relationship is about describing how you are connected or related to each other, in the environment as well as in real life.

Some examples:

• Facebook (a tool we will get to later) and Linkedin both allow you to add “friends” so you instantly are identifying the relationship
• Instant messaging software as the “buddy” list, another indicator of the relationship
• Flickr, a photo sharing site we will also hit later, allows you to connect with folks as contacts  or friends/family – which denotes two different levels of “intimacy” and thus, controls access to the photos.

Relationship in social software allows you to identify how someone else is related to you and how you can connect to them. What is unusual about this kind of relationship is that it can also be with people you have never met, as in the case of Twitter, a microblogging/presence tool. Of the 56 people I follow in Twitter, I only know 12 of them personally. But, I feel a relationship with the others as they post in Twitter and I follow their lives, their thinking, their travels and more. It really is fascinating!

In the classroom, there are relationships between the students as well between the teacher and the student and, to some extent, between the student and the content (how else can we explain math or test anxiety?!?)

Is there power in knowing the relationships between others in the social environment?

How can that be used in your own teaching?

THIS WEEK’S ACTIVITIES

I am introducing two new sites/services this week. Feel free to explore one or both.  They are: Delicious and Twitter.

MORE INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS ARE AT MY PELLISSIPPI 2.0 TUMBLR BLOG

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Are you ready to get started? Great, me, too!!

This entire experience is framed on the seven characteristics of social software as described by Gene Smith in his article, Social Software Building Blocks on his blog at nForm. You can drop by to get some foreshadowing of where we are heading in the next few weeks or just let things unfold, it is up to you!

The first building block I would like you to consider is PRESENCE. Presence in social software can be described in two ways, in my thinking.

First, presence can also mean notification. It is the sense that someone is online and when they are online. You might have seen it in several places already in your online activities.

Some examples of Presence as notification:

If you use Google Talk or other instant messaging, you can see who is available for chat.

If you use Skype, you can set you online presence indicator from Online to Offline, SypeMe or even Invisible!

There is even a presence element in our online course environment (D2L). When you enter our D2L course, click on the Classlist link in the right set of links in the course navigation bar. If you see a green dot next to anybody’s name, you will know that they are logged into the server!

Another aspect of presence is just “being there” in the environment or same space and being a part of the community.

Many of these tools allow you to see if folks you know are also a part of that social network.

For example, you can use the People Find option in Facebook to locate folks and see if they have a presence there. Other social networking sites work the same way. As we move through the weeks, we will be working to find each other’s presence in the tool as well as others we might know.

ACTIVITIES

For your first week, you are going to establish your presence online in the “edublogosphere” - the community of education-oriented bloggers.

That’s right, you are going to get a blog! What I would like you to do with this blog is both to explore how blogging works as well as use the place for reflection on this entire Pellissippi 2.0 experience.

First up, watch a video

Take a few minutes to watch this great video about blogs and what they are

Second: Get a Blog!

If you already have a blog, you can use that but I would encourage you to explore a different blogging platform instead, just so you can expand your knowledge a bit.

Some blogging choices:

I would recommend Tumblr for a good start in blogging. Tumblr is a “tumble blog” that is designed for a very easy to use start at blogging, video sharing, etc. It is often called a microblog as it does not have all of the features of a “full blown” blog but I think it will serve as a great introduction to blogging for you.

Tumblr supports seven different types of entries: text (“traditional blog entries”), links, conversations, photos, quotes, audio clips, videos

If you watched the video linked above, you have already been to my Tumblr blog for our Pellissippi 2.0 experience: Pellissippi 2.0 – AJW

To get a Tumblr blog: http://www.tumblr.com and click the Sign up in 10 seconds link. Provide your email address, password and the name you want to use for your Tumblr blog and you are off! You will then have your own blog with an address something like this: http://yourname.tumblr.com

Posting in Tumblr is really easy:

1. Think of something you want to write or discover a photo, video, link you want to share.
2. Log into Tumblr – you will then be on your dashboard
3. Click the icon for the type of post you want to make.
4. Write or copy/paste and add links, etc as you want.
5. Done!

It is easy!

If you already have a Tumblr account, you can add an additional Tumblr blog to it to keep it separate from what you are already doing in Tumblr. (if you want)

If Tumblr is not enough for you and you want to go one step further, then I recommend checking out Edublogs. This is a service based in Australia that provides free full-featured blogs for educators and students. They have had some phenomenal growth, which sometimes translates to slower servers but you cannot beat the functionality for the price! Signup there the same way as Tumblr – give an email, create an account, name your blog and you are off and running. Edublogs offers a good support site with video tutorials and more.

Third: Get into D2L and let us know about your new blog

I have created the group a space in Desire2Learn (D2L), the online site for our web classes, etc. If you have never logged in before, you get to now! Oh boy! Visit: http://www.pstcc.edu/online/ for the login link (use the same username/password as you do for WebMail, campus computers, etc). We also have lots of tutorials about how to use the system.

Once inside, you will see a course called “Pellissippi 2.0″. It is in the Training semester so you might have to expand that semester by clicking on the small plus sign next to its name. Click the name of the course and you will be inside the course. The course homepage has a feed on it for brand new web 2.0 stuff – just for fun as well as an audio file you can enjoy.

In the course, click on COURSE CONTENT (link in the lower left side of the upper navbar). There is a wiki page there, click on it and then on the edit button. YOu can then add your name, your blog name and address as well as the email address you want to use for Pellissippi 2.0 (PSTCC, Yahoo, Gmail or whatever)

• So, get out there, get your blog and explore it a little bit this week. See what you can add to it. See how you can customize it.
• Share the blog location on our course wiki
• Ask questions in D2L (I have a discussion board there for us to ask/answer each others questions).
• Most importantly, have fun!

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Heard of Facebook?
Wondering what Twitter is?
Want to explore a few of the new web 2.0 tools out there?
Then, join the Pellissipip 2.0 movement!   The Pellissippi 2.0, what??

Basically, it is an 8 week series framed around the seven characteristics of social software. Each week, we will go through a characteristic and then have the week to explore one or two web sites or tools that exemplify that characteristic. No quizzes, No workshops..just exploration and reflection. If you have questions about the tools, holler and as a group, we can help each other out.

The group will get information from this blog, explore on their own and reflect in their own blogs. We also will have a D2L course for sharing information and discussion, if we want to use it. We can plan to get together on an irregular basis, if the group wants, perhaps through Elluminate or another software.

The video below sets the tone:

SIGNUP IS OVER FOR FALL 2008. Thanks.

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We are very excited about tomorrow’s 3rd Annual President’s Convocation to kickoff the 2008-2009 Common Academic Experience!

The event is taking place in the Performing Arts Center (PAC) starting at 11:50 am. If you cannot attend in the PAC, we are also broadcasting the entire event to all of the site campus’ Distance Learning Classrooms (BL103; DV134; MA149) as well as the Goins Auditorium.

If, for some reason, you cannot attend the presentation in the PAC or one of our broadcast sites, we are also going to offer a streaming option via the web. Due to copyright restrictions, we cannot stream the first few minutes of the session, so please note that the streaming option will begin around noon tomorrow and will include all of Sue Yamin’s talk but not the preliminary introductions and presentation. Faculty may want to stream the presentation in their classroom using the teacher multimedia console.

To view the streaming video, go to the Common Book site and visit the EVENTS tab which has an embedded player for easy viewing. You can get there from the Common Book link on the lower left of the Current Students page on the PSTCC web site or use the direct link

We also have a Common Book “channel” on our streaming video site that can be used as a second way to get to the video:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/pstcc-common-academic-experience

In either option, you can choose to put the video into full screen mode by clicking a small icon in the lower right of the video window, however, since it is streaming web video, the quality of the video in full screen will not be as good as it is in the smaller, embedded video player.

Enjoy the Convocation!

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